Boris Johnson confirms no further restrictions in Downing Street Press conference

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said there would be be no further Covid restrictions implemented at the moment and said England will remain under 'Plan B'.

The Prime Minister was asked, on a visit to a vaccination centre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, whether the pandemic was coming to an end in the UK.

He told broadcasters the country was in a “much, much stronger position than this time last year… because of science and because of vaccination”, but he warned against complacency.

It would be “absolute folly” to think the coronavirus pandemic was “all over”, Mr Johnson said.

He said: “I would say to everybody looking at the pressures on the NHS in the next couple of weeks, and maybe longer, looking at the numbers of people who are going to be going into hospital, it will be absolute folly to say that this thing is all over now bar the shouting.

“We’ve got to remain cautious. We got to stick with Plan B. We’ve got to get boosted.”

Asked whether resisting further restrictions would risk putting further strain on the NHS, Mr Johnson said the current measures are the right ones to address the virus.

Pressure on the NHS for the “next couple of weeks and maybe more” is going to be “considerable”, Mr Johnson has said.

The Prime Minister said the Omicron variant of coronavirus is “plainly milder” than other strains.

But he said “there’s no question Omicron continues to surge through the country”.

He added: “I think we’ve got to recognise that the pressure on our NHS, on our hospitals, is going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks, and maybe more.”

Minister for vaccines and public health Maggie Throup said Plan B “is working”.

Asked if the Government was listening to health professionals and prepared to bring in more restrictions, she told Sky News: “As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we have got Plan B, which is people working from home, the Covid pass, face coverings and obviously the vaccine programme, which is so, so important.”

She added: “Plan B is working, as you can see from the number of hospitalisations, it’s far, far fewer than this time last year and that’s so important as well, that the vaccines are working, the measures for people to work from home are working.

“The Prime Minister said that Plan B is working and there’ll be a Cabinet meeting today, and I don’t see any reason why we need to change. It’s important we do follow the data.”

A top infectious disease expert said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Covid cases are beginning to plateau in London.

Professor Neil Ferguson, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease, told the BBC Today programme: “I think I’m cautiously optimistic that infection rates in London in that key 18-50 age group, which has been driving the Omicron epidemic, may possibly have plateaued, it’s too early to say whether they’re going down yet.”

He added: “I would say that with an epidemic which has been spreading so quickly and reaching such high numbers, it can’t sustain those numbers forever, so we would expect to see case numbers start to come down in the next week, maybe already coming down in London, but in other regions a week to three weeks.

“Whether they then drop precipitously or we see a pattern a bit like we saw with Delta back in July – of an initial drop and then quite a high plateau – remains to be seen, it’s just too difficult to interpret current mixing trends and what the effect of open schools again will be.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will lead a Downing Street press conference at 5pm.

He will be joined by England’s chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.